The Green and the Gray

The Irish in the Confederate States of America

David T. Gleeson

Publication Year: 2013

Why did many Irish Americans, who did not have a direct connection to slavery, choose to fight for the Confederacy? This perplexing question is at the heart of David T. Gleeson's sweeping analysis of the Irish in the Confederate States of America. Taking a broad view of the subject, Gleeson considers the role of Irish southerners in the debates over secession and the formation of the Confederacy, their experiences as soldiers, the effects of Confederate defeat for them and their emerging ethnic identity, and their role in the rise of Lost Cause ideology. Focusing on the experience of Irish southerners in the years leading up to and following the Civil War, as well as on the Irish in the Confederate army and on the southern home front, Gleeson argues that the conflict and its aftermath were crucial to the integration of Irish Americans into the South. Throughout the book, Gleeson draws comparisons to the Irish on the Union side and to southern natives, expanding his analysis to engage the growing literature on Irish and American identity in the nineteenth-century United States.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

My first thanks must go to David Perry and Gary Gallagher, who encouraged
me to do this project. Since I began, their support and patience have been
key to its successful completion. Other folk at the University of North Carolina
Press, especially Cait Bell-Butterfield, John K. Wilson, and Ron Maner,
have put a lot of work...

Introduction: The Fighting Irish

Irish participation in the Confederate experiment represents a complex and imperfectly understood element of the American Civil War. Much less numerous than their countrymen who took part in the Union war effort, Irish Confederates still present serious questions about what it meant to be Irish and American in the mid-nineteenth century. Those Irish who lived in the ...

Chapter 1 Reluctant Secessionists: The Irish, Southern Politics, and the Birth of the Confederacy

The Irish, Southern Politics, and the Birth of the Confederacy Irish immigrants were active participants in the politics of southern cities. They generally supported the Democratic Party, attracted to its rhetoric of the common man as well as its pro-immigration platform. The relationship between the Irish and southern Democrats became even closer during out-...

The secession of southern states and the creation of the Confederate States of America compelled the Irish who wished to remain in those states to switch their allegiance to the new nation. Many also responded to calls to defend it, often forming their own ethnic units. About 20,000 Irishmen would serve in the Confederate armed forces. Rhetoric and images compar-...

Chapter 3 Faugh a Ballagh! (Clear the Way!): The Irish in the Confederate Army

Fulfilling in part the stereotype of the “Fighting Irish,” Irish soldiers earned a reputation for bravery in the Confederate army as well as one for being difficult to manage. One of their commanders observed, for example, that with the “strong hand” of good officers, they could be great soldiers.1 Unfortunately for Confederate authorities, even “strong hands” could not stop Irish ...

Chapter 4 Hard Times: The Irish on the Home Front

Support for Irish Confederate soldiers from home was vital both for encouraging them to stay in the army and to highlight to native white southerners that the entire Irish community was behind the Confederacy. Civilian leaders of the Irish in the South did embrace the Confederate national project and most became advocates of a “hard-war” policy. They accepted that state ...

Chapter 5 For God, Erin, and Carolina: Irish Catholics in the Confederacy

Although Irish religious leaders of all denominations supported the Confederacy, it was Catholic clergy and sisters who natives saw as the leaders and role models of the Irish community. Thomas Smyth from Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, for example, was a prominent cleric and Irish immigrant, but it was his Catholic counterpart and fellow Irish immigrant ...

Chapter 6 Another “Lost Cause”: The Irish after the Confederacy

In the commemoration of the Confederacy aft er the Civil War, the Irish in the South rediscovered a Confederate spirit they had lost during the conflict. Aft er the surrender of the major Confederate armies in April and May 1865, all, including the most patriotic of them, accepted defeat and a return to the United States. The decision made by prominent Confederates such ...

Conclusion: Ambiguous Confederates

The Irish experience of the Confederacy was indeed an ambiguous one. They had been reluctant secessionists, yet rallied in large numbers to the Confederacy when war began. Those who joined the armed forces were, in general, good fighters, but also more likely to desert than native Confederates. Irish civilians supported their “boys” in the service, but most tired of ...

Index

Series Title: Civil War AmericaSeries Editor Byline: Series Editors: Peter S. Carmichael, Gettysburg College; Gary W. Gallagher, University of Virginia; Caroline E. Janney, Purdue University; and Aaron Sheehan-Dean, West Virginia University
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